Scarlet Sky
by Deese-Rouge-Cheveux
Summary: “Love is simply a game of manipulation,” he said slowly, enjoying the stream of words pouring from his lips. “Love is simply the game of manipulation in which, with you, love, I have become a very good dissembler.”Ginny reflects on Tom, but is it


***Note*** Keep in mind that while in the flashback/memory in the Astronomy Tower, Tom and Ginny are in their own dimension within the diary. Make your own connections from there, lol. 

****

**Scarlet Sky**  
  
It was sunset, the sky was ablaze in a deep watercolor red and orange. On the cold cut stone floors sat a girl, rather a fragile woman, singularly kneeling down. The only light in the room was from the rather large glass door leading out to a balcony. She knew why she was there, although it had been a long time since she had last sat here. Memories came flowing back to her, and even though they were long since passed, she still bit her lip in apprehension.   
  
_"Virginia Marianne Weasley, a pureblood," he had pronounced with a clipped tongue. Then, only eleven or twelve, she understood (or thought she did) what it was he came for that night.   
  
"Tom Marvolo Riddle, also a pureblood," she had replied with a demure shyness; it was a lie, but who was she to actually claim his impurity? It was as if she had a script before her, the words barely reaching the depths of her foggy mind. She stood up and went to unbutton her shirt.   
  
"No, Ginny," he snapped like a cobra easily irritated. Ginny dropped her arms to her sides, taking a look around the room. It was the ever-popular Astronomy Tower in the even more popular Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The Tower was known for the dodgy business carried on there, and Ginny didn't stop to think why Tom had shot her down this time. It also did not occur to her why every time they were up there, there was no other interruptions.   
  
"But… Tom?" she asked, not thinking to complete her sentence. "Why…?"  
  
"Because, Virginia," he replied, not bothering with the petty ending to the answer. "Sit there!" he snapped, going from quiet and ominous to commanding and thrice as ominous. Ginny's knees immediately gave out and she landed sitting cross-legged on the cold floor.   
  
Somehow, despite the fogged vision she had at the time, the young girl knew that in twenty or thirty years from now, she would become mesmerized by the explicit details that the night would cover. "Tom, I'm not so sure ab—"  
  
"Silence!" he growled below a whisper. The raspy voice sent shivers down her spine, slowly— excruciatingly slowly. So, as ordered, the girl sat there, cross-legged, on the ground, vacuous eyes trained on nothing but the sunset in the sky. She sat immobile, static, not knowing why she didn't make a fuss over being made to wait like some puppy to her master's will.   
  
_'The sky is pretty tonight,'_ she thought, barely having any feeling or insight behind it_. 'Yes, it is very pretty tonight… All red and pretty.'_ Ginny put no other emotion behind her thoughts, it was as if she were holding a dull conversation with herself. Nodding off, Ginny suddenly snapped her head toward Tom. "Tom..?" she said, with a small rise in her voice.   
  
"Not yet," he replied, preoccupied with something in front of himself. Lines were becoming darker, more defined, shadows became bold, and the sky colored itself in… All like a snap of a twig for Ginny. Her ears perked and she heard a low hissing noise.   
  
"Tom!" she said, more dominant. She craned her neck, and gaped at what she saw. Tom was hovered over his wand, which projected a screen. There was a giant, huge, ghastly snake. And it was… Attacking a girl with curly brown hair… The girl just froze in her spot and fell over! "TOM! What are you doing?!" she shouted.  
  
"Virginia Marianne Weasley, a pureblood," he said coldly, too coldly for the likes of Ginny.  
  
"To—" Ginny began, a rhetorical reply.  
  
"Stupid," he spat, making Ginny flinch backward, "foolish, a little girl with too much respect for the Great Harry Potter and the Mudbloods." Tom waved his wand and jumped up with the prowess of a tiger. Ginny, a girl of barely twelve, slightly cowered beneath the tall, sixteen year old, raven headed, fierce eyed, monster of a man. Yes, when his temper flared like that… yes, he was a monster. There was no other word for it.   
  
"But, Tom, I—" Ginny shakily started, backing up, yet reaching out for his arm.  
  
"I'll have no more of your nonsense and babble," he said darkly. "Now that I have used you to make my deeds done—"  
  
"B—what?! Tom, you know that we lo—" Ginny began, grasping his arm to hers.  
  
"Love? What do you think love is, you child?!" Tom said, towering over the redhead yet again. "Love is simply a game of manipulation,"  he said slowly, enjoying the stream of words pouring from his lips. "Love is simply the game of manipulation in which, with you, love, I have become a very good dissembler."  
  
Ginny looked away, not believing it. "This isn't you, Tom, this isn't!" she cried out, hating to show how weak she was at the time.   
  
"Oh, but isn't it?" Tom replied with a rye smile. "You should have known that I, being the younger version of the Dark Lor—"   
  
"But you _aren't_ him!" Ginny shouted, covering her face with her hands, walking over to the door of the balcony. "You AREN'T HIM YET, TOM!!"  
  
Tom shook his head, with fake sympathy. "What do you know, you're just a little girl," he bit out coldly.  
  
"No, Tom, I won't believe it! You told me, you must remember!" Ginny screamed. "Way back in the beginning of the year… The good times, remember, you said that it was all an act—t-that you really were being forced to do this by some hidden part that no one could ever—"  
  
"Shut it!" he shouted back, silencing her with a glare. "You can't honestly believe all of that fluffy 'Pity me, I'm just misunderstood!' crap!"   
  
Ginny shook her head. "Tom…" she whispered, throat gone hoarse. "Tom, you remember… You must remember the scarlet… the scarle—"  
  
There was a sharp pain in her head, a stone had hit her. "Never, and I mean, _neve_r repeat those words ever again," he whispered grimly, eyes cast away from her as she slowly slid to the ground and passed out.   
  
She had awoken up in the arms of Harry Potter, well, that's what she could remember. Ginny was pretty sure she had done something to awake in the Chamber of Secrets, but, under that spell of Tom's, she could never really be sure. _

Taking a deep, cleansing breath, the girl, now an older, wiser woman, closed her eyes. After the Chamber, after Tom, she had a pretty tough life. She tried to fill the void of his strange, alluring love, with a boyfriend every other week. But, they were not up to par. No one could be. No one was _him. _

After graduation, Ginny was left feeling helpless. Harry Potter had been murdered by Neville Longbottom in the final battle, a dreary ending to the fight against light. Well, the fight of Dark versus Light, but it was all the same to Ginny. Everyone had been expecting some sort of miraculous answer to solve the puzzle, to allow the good to win, to allow Lord Voldemort die once and for all, and make Harry Potter _and_ Neville Longbottom household heroes. But, Lord Voldemort was killed along with Harry, in Neville's tear-driven duels. It left everyone feeling like there was something missing, something more not discovered. But that was really all there was to it. 

Ginny was helpless, she was living in The Burrow with her mummy and daddy like some loser, without a job, and still missing the man that had been so much, so long ago. Dumbledore came to her rescue, putting in good word for her to the new Headmistress, McGonnagal. Later, the Head of House offered her a job, which she accepted with grim irony. She was to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, which everyone thought would be easy for her, she _did have the experience of "such a horrific hypnosis," that she "probably can't even remember anymore!". _

And that was where she was today. The age of twenty-six had reached her, and she was living in the castle, alone, and still pining over what once was. Every year, she'd teach the same students over and over again. Every year there would be a smarmy and potentially snobby Draco Malfoy. Every year there would be a indignant and too-modest Harry Potter. Every year there would be a good-two-shoe know-it-all Hermione Granger. Every year she saw her quick-tempered brother. And _ever year_ she saw a shy girl, that kept to herself, just like the never-do-wrong Virginia Weasley. 

And each year, she would teach them how to overcome the evil people in the world. But, they didn't know that there was no evil. There was only the person you loved, and then the rest of the world. And whoever took the loved one away; then you could call out evil. 

Ginny shivered on the floor, lighting a couple candles. They were white candles, scented vanilla… it brought on another wave of  nostalgic memory. 

_"Ginny, darling, I know it's barely September, but…" his voice echoed through her head._

"What is it, Tom?" Ginny said now, smiling to herself in shyness that a twenty-six year old shouldn't have.

_"I… I will have a problem, in the future. I—I'm going to become an evil man, a man that could very well ruin the world," he replied, putting a hand on the eleven year old's arm. "Ginny, I am going to do some terrible things that the real me can't stop, I might even… I might even do them to you."_

"Tom," she called out. "Tom, I'll never let any of that change how I think of you as I do now… No matter what you do to me."

_"Good." Tom replied, running a hand through his black-brown hair and staring out at the sunset. There was a moment of silence._

Ginny sat, ears perked for any sound, eyes closed in blissful memory.

_"The sunset is going to be beautiful tonight," he whispered, pulling the little girl up. "Let's watch the sunset tonight."_

"Sure, Tom, that sounds lovely," Ginny replied, her lips dry from the windy weather. Her hair was on end, goosebumps rising on her skin as she shivered in the oncoming night's cold nip. She slowly shuffled out the glass doors onto the balcony. 

_"Oh, Ginny… This may sound awkward, but I'm going to miss you, Gin." Tom whispered into Ginny's ear._

Even now she could feel the hair around her ear tickle as his hot breath blew it around her cheeks. "Tom… Tom, I miss you. I miss you more than anything now." She didn't even have the feeling left within her to bring up a tear into her doe brown eyes. She slowly walked up toward the stone wall, looking out at the glorious red sky. She rested her arms on the rail, slowly resting her head on her own folded arms. 

_"C'mere, Gin," he whispered, pulling her by the waist to him. Then there were no words. He took out a small emerald green gem bejeweled pocketknife, flipping it open. Slowly, he carved into his skin, blood pouring out of his arm. He slowly wiped off the soaking blood, trying to examine his arm for good measure. Handing Ginny the knife, she stared at the shiny silver metal, her own reflection blurred through scarlet blood. She smiled, a smile of great sorrow, not joy. It was odd, but life seemed so short to the eleven year old at that point. She took the knife to the porcelain white skin of her forearm, making sure not to come too close to her wrist. _

"It's perfect," she whispered. "I love you, Tom."

_"You know what, I've always wanted to…fly! Let's fly, Ginny, let's fly just this once." Tom said, showing more childish ambition than he had ever shown before. _

Ginny took the knife to her skin one last time, looking up to Tom, who was now standing on the ledge, holding out his hand to help her up. She hastily finished the last stroke, not bothering to make sure her wrist was cut-less. Getting up, she stood on the ledge, arm around Tom's waist. 

_"On the count of three… What, Ginny? Are you afraid? Nothing can hurt us here," Tom assured, holding her hand to his chest. "I'll go first to show you." He took a breath of air, smirking to the little girl. He took a step off the ledge, floating as if the skies were made out of water. "Come on, Ginny, our little sunset sky."_

Ginny smiled beautifully, despite the dull pang and sting of her arm. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, she leapt into her loved one's arms. "Tom…" she sighed, almost not noticing the air rushing past her ears. She closed her eyes, still lost within a lapse of time only she could recollect. Only she and Tom. 

Her last breath filled her lungs with bittersweet, cold air. She smiled, and then all was done. 

~*~

"Oh, dear Lord!" a shrill scream resonated across the Hogwarts' grounds. A pool of blood surrounded a red head, who had her arms spread. Was she hugging the ground or…?

"She looks like she went out for a fly," Professor Longbottom said nervously, "without her broom." He looked away, overcome with emotion. "Is it…?" 

Headmistress McGonagall's response was a sob, and she hoarsely whispered, "Someone call the MediWizards, a Miss Virginia Weasley is… is… dead."

Hours later, the Weasley family were all sad faced and red eyed. "Why…?!" sobbed Charlie, covering his face with his hands. 

"Excuse me, I am terribly sorry, but we do have confirmation of Wizard Narcotic 24C." a short, stout witch with her wild brown hair in a bee's hive bun. "That's Billywig extract, in short terms. Are you aware of th—"

"It's illegal… our little Ginny wouldn't…" Mr. Weasley said, eyes misting over again. 

"Billywig…. That… That's one of the most powerful hallucinogens available…?" Ron said, his voice breaking and wavering.

"Yes, that is correct, sir," the MediWitch said curtly. "There is something else… We're trying… Well, quite frankly, it's a very _odd sign. Erm, you see, we're trying to rule out possibilities…. But, uhm, there is no other explanation."_

"What is it?" sniffed Molly from behind her handkerchief. 

"This," the MediWitch said, with a funny face, thrusting a medical photograph into the nearest Weasley's arm. Coincidentally, it was Fred, who immediately went white and shoved it to George. 

"Dear Lord," George croaked. He passed it on to Percy, who paled and excused himself from the gathering. Last to get the picture before the announcement was Ron. 

"M-m-mum, Dad… It… her arm… in blood," he whispered hoarsely, voice cracking in the oddest ways. "It spells out: T-O-M."

There was a clatter as Mrs. Weasley hit the floor, having passed out.

Tom Marvolo Riddle lived on, many years after his demise, for this, his last murder was one of breaking a heart. That heart belonged to Virginia Marianne Weasley, at the age of twenty-six, her premature death almost too perfect for words. The craft of evil and love intertwined within one; it was meant to bring Ginny to her love, but to take her blossoming life from earth was the finality. 

_"Truth be told I've tried my best  
  
_

_But somewhere along the way  
  
_

_I got caught up in all there was to offer  
  
_

_And the cost was so much more than I could bear_

_Though I've tried, I've fallen..."_

~*~

AN: Deep persuasion from friends caused me to write this one. No, I'm not off hiatus just yet. :P Sorry, y'all. See, my schedule is booked all the way till Christmas, but I _do_ get Thanksgiving off, thank you God! Maybe I'll try to update on SoS when I get the chance, no promises!


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